Government has ‘thrown the kitchen sink’ at homeless crisis – junior minister

By Cate McCurry, PA

The Government has “thrown the kitchen sink” at the homeless crisis in Ireland in an attempt to address it, a minister of state has said.

Christopher O’Sullivan said that it has been a really “difficult challenge to tackle”, but that it is a priority for the Minister for Housing.

His comments come as the latest figures show there are almost 5,000 homeless children in Ireland.

Figures released on Friday show that homelessness reached another record high.

The data shows 15,747 people are now in emergency accommodation during the last week of May, some 10,903 of whom are adults and 4,844 children.

This is an increase on the 15,418 people, 4,675 of whom were children, recorded in May.

Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon said the impact of living in emergency accommodation will be lifelong for children.

Last week, Children’s ombudsman Dr Niall Muldoon said that Government’s housing initiatives continuously fail children.

Mr O’Sullivan told RTÉ’s The Week In Politics programme: “The figures at the moment, they’re not acceptable, and I don’t think anyone is saying for one second that they are.

“The Government is acutely aware that there is a housing crisis, and there is a significant issue with homelessness, which we’re trying to tackle.

“Obviously, we’re particularly struck by the words of the Children’s ombudsman, essentially highlighting the devastating impact that emergency accommodation and homelessness in general is having on children and the long term impacts.

“This is a really, a really difficult challenge to tackle.

“That’s been proven over the last number of years, and we have thrown the kitchen sink (at) it, but I will say this, there’s no doubt that it’s a priority for Taoiseach, it’s a priority for this government.

“Working with (housing minister) James Browne, I’m in the Department of Housing as Minister of State, I know that this is a priority for him.

“These stories, these, I suppose, testimonies I know motivate him.

“They motivate him to make change.

“They motivate made him to make a difference on homelessness.

“That is why the very first piece of legislation that Minister James Browne introduced in the House was around preventing homelessness.”

Mr Gannon, who has also backed a redress scheme for children living in emergency accommodation, said there is too much reliance on the private model.

He added: “For those children who are living in those substandard hotel accommodation, (that is) being paid for by the taxpayer.

 

“The impacts that they’re having on their lives, be that through the inability to be just playing in the area, the therapeutic sports that’s going to be needed, the lifelong consequences, that will also be funded by the taxpayer.”

“The impact this is having with children’s lives is going on now for a decade.

“We know the impacts in terms of speech and language, an inability to play, mobility issues.

“Look, we need to be zoning land as affordable. We need to have the state getting back and building in a massive, significant way.

“We also need to take a step back and understand the impact that these living provisions are having children in this state.”

Sinn Féin TD Claire Kerrane told the programme the Government should first use the thousands of empty council homes across the country.

“We need to get them turned around, and we need to get families into them,” she added.

“We need to look at those derelict properties, particularly in our rural areas.

“They’re in every town and village.

“And we need to look at quick wins in terms of turning these buildings around, that we can provide immediate homes for people as quickly as possible.”